Here to learn and resolve the issues with my new beast PRO audio rig, [-°help!-]

Hello guys, great forum!
I hope that you all can help me, because I'm feeling very frustrated after weeks non stop trying to accomplish a goal without success. Here seems to be participating very knowledged people.

I bought the best PC parts available in the market at least for the task that I want to do that is audio processing and music production, quite more power than what I actually need, but the Windows 10 Pro doesn't stop getting on my nervs. The neverending nvlddmkm.sys, dxgkrnl.sys and ntoskrnl.sys, thing are generating the non ideal enviroment to continue installing all my plugins, libraries, software, etc. I don't want to spend a week installing everything to then realize that I need to resintall all the system or even worst, swap operative systems once again. I've jumped from Windows 7 to Windows 10 and viceversa like 10 times in the last couple of days. I'm using the LatencyMon to monitor all this and DSP Latency Checker in Windows 7.

DSP Latency Checker, shows beautiful numbers in Win7 (around 40us average all the time) but, the LatencyMon shows a very high amount of Hard pagefaults and also the hated nvlddmkm.sys
and Windows 10 hasn't a single Hard pagefault, but the problem with the kernels is inifinit, even after disabling the Windows Search service and using the iGPU UHD 630 instead of the Nvidia GTX 1050.

I tried to use the windows assesment and deployment tools but I couldn't understand much, although I learnt how to record the activity of the system to be analyzed for someone how know better what's happening.
Thank you in advance!

Re: Here to learn and resolve the issues with my new beast PRO audio rig, [-°help!-]

A couple things. It is a mistake to consider going back to W7 - if you don't have to. W7 is already nearly 9 years old and mainstream support already ended 3 years ago in January 2015.

It is important to note that W10 is not XP or W7 and should not be treated the same way. There is no need to disable search/indexing or mess with other default settings. What you do need to do is let them run and finish, and just use the computer. Windows will then learn how you use the computer and optimize itself for you. Contrary to what many believe or want everyone else to believe, they are not smarter than the Windows development team at Microsoft. And Microsoft has not been sitting on their thumbs for the last 2 decades either. So if you are reading you need to do this or that to make W10 better, don't believe it.

Microsoft developers really do know what they are doing (I emphasis "developers" because I can't necessarily say the same thing about some of the marketing and executive policy decisions that have come about ) and the default settings (many of which are dynamic for a good reason) really do work for the vast majority of users - if only those users would just leave them alone! Any by vast majority, I mean those of use sitting between 2 and 99% of all users.

As someone who is very much long-time, hands-on control freak myself when it comes to my computers, this idea of just letting Windows manage it can be a hard pill to swallow. But it does work.

You say you are frustrated after weeks non stop trying to accomplish a goal without success, but you didn't tell us what that goal is! And your screen shot looks great.

The only thing that really bothers me is the specifications for your audio interface. It clearly says for driver support, "Drivers: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/64". No Windows 8 or Windows 10! It is critical users understand it is the hardware manufacturer's responsibility to develop compatible W8/W10 drivers, not Microsoft's - if that hardware is expected to work properly with the latest operating systems. And it is the user's responsibility to ensure compatible drivers are available before trying to make the hardware work where it can't - or at least the user needs to be aware and accept that such "legacy" products may not be supported.

You should probably contact RME tech support and ask them about W10. Maybe they have a beta driver you can test for them. Otherwise, you may be forced to revert back the legacy W7 OS, or move to Linux, or do what RME most likely wants you to do and spend more money buying a new interface where they have developed current W10 drivers.

Re: Here to learn and resolve the issues with my new beast PRO audio rig, [-°help!-]

First of all, thanks for your answer and sorry for the delay, I saw this just today.

My goal is to have a really light system dedicated primarily for audio and music production.
The intention is to be able to run the largest amount of audio channels and VST plugins simultaneously without latency. Right now, with my system fully installed, customized and configurated (Windows 7 + Ableton Live 10) as opposed of what you said, I'm getting a great performance of 67 channels full of heavy plugins and audio libraries without clics or pops with only 16gb of RAM. Down below I leave a video and the details of a simple audio -non scientific but realistic- test that I did.SETUP: Ableton 10 + Windows 7 Ultimate (x64) [customized & deployed]Intel i7 8700 4.3ghzCorsair cooling H110i16gb Corsair Vengeance LPX 2.900mhzAudio Interface RME Hdspe RayDat (PCIe)EVGA Nvidia GTX 1050 2GBSSD Samsung 960 Evo 250GB3 SSD's more running projects, libraries and samples.

I agree with you that developers of Windows 10 may be probably smarter than the vast majority of intermediate users commenting online, but in my humble opinion has nothing to do with the practice; Would be the same to say that a car can't fail because of the factory engineers and the computers example is even harder since you install the OS in a vast amount of different components and the cars are almost identical for each model. So I guess it's not a matter of intelligence but different situations that are not foreseen.
The same goes I guess for that feature that you've mentioned about Windows 10 being auto-optimized itself (I don't know what it is), sounds really appealing but doesn't work in practice either, at least in my case and this scenario.

In relation to the RME driver, thank you very much to take the time to check the versions and compatibility of it, as you can see it says: 2000/XP/Vista/7/64That 64 means all the Windows versions of 64bits after Windows 7 [8 + 8.1 + 10]. If you check the downloads sections the last driver was uploaded 9/12/2017, and it clearly says: [Windows XP SP2 / 7 / 8 / 10 32/64 bit. Supports ALL HDSP and HDSPe cards/systems!] so the issue is not from that side.

So, I'm still open for someone who knows how to solve the nvlddmkm.sys, dxgkrnl.sys andntoskrnl.sys latency thing in Windows 10 or at least helping me to understand my Windows Performance Analyzer file and where could be the conflict.

Re: Here to learn and resolve the issues with my new beast PRO audio rig, [-°help!-]

Would be the same to say that a car can't fail

No, it is not the same at all. While car analogies are often very applicable and useful to explain computer issues, yours is not applicable at all.

While cars are certainly very "intelligent" (that is, computerized) these days, they are still primarily "mechanical" devices therefore much more likely to have failures than a computer with no moving parts. And this will always be true until Man can create perfection 100% of the time, and avoid accidents 100% of the time.

In your case, you are still talking about using a legacy hardware device on a modern OS, Windows 10. This again is totally not applicable to your car analogy.

And I point out again, it is up to the hardware maker to ensure compatibility of their legacy products with the current version of Windows, not Microsoft's. RME needs to develop W10 drivers and ensure they are compatible with W10. Not Microsoft.

NO!!!!! That is NOT at all what 64-bit means. 64-bit is a "hardware" function, not software. Though you need a 64-bit OS to take full advantage of 64-bit hardware, one does not imply the other. For example, 32-bit Windows runs just fine on 64-bit hardware - but NOT the other way around.

and it clearly says: [Windows XP SP2 / 7 / 8 / 10 32/64 bit. Supports ALL HDSP and HDSPe cards/systems!] so the issue is not from that side.

Oh? Where do you see that? Please provide a link specifically showing Windows 8 and 10 because on this page, it "clearly says",

Drivers: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/64

That does NOT mean the drivers support W8, 8.1 or 10, and neither does that 64.

Bill (AFE7Ret)Freedom is NOT Free!
MS MVP Windows and Devices for IT, 2007 - 2018Heatis the bane of all electronics!